General Ho read the citation in a clear, gruff voice ending with, ''Your actions, in the face of criminal acts and hostile fire, reflect credit on yourself and the Navy in which you serve.''
Kris blinked; in the past, such citations always concluded, ''and the Society of Humanity's Navy in which you serve.'' General Ho offered her the award folder. Behind her, in their ghetto, high-ranking officers shuffled their feet, a virtual scream of opposition to what was missing.
Kris sneaked a peek at the citation. The traditional phrase was there in black and white. General Ho had omitted it. Was this his way of telling his fellow officers that the green and blue flag was coming down?
The civilians, of course, missed this bit of drama playing out in front of them. They were on their feet as Mother and Father surrounded Kris. Mother, of course pinned on the medal.
''Well, dear, now that you've got your bauble, are you ready to come home?'' she whispered as she managed to put the pin into Kris's left breast. ''A miniature of it will make a lovely pendent. I know a jeweler who could place a few diamonds on it and make it truly divine.''
''Mu-ther,'' Kris whispered back, intentionally shaping the word to echo her fourteen-year-old self…and probably generations of girls. ''You don't just walk away from the Navy. They call it desertion, mutiny, things like that.''
''Oh, your father was just telling me this morning that the Navy has itself in a budget bind. Aren't they sending their sailors home early?''
''Yes, Mother, but I'm an officer. We're just on half pay, and they want us back for half of it.''
''Well, it seems to me that—''
''Ladies, smile for the cameras,'' Father ordered through a clenched-toothed smile of his own. Kris and Mother obeyed.
The ceremony self-destructed after that as everyone went their own way. Mother and Father had people to meet.
General Ho had a lot of raised eyebrows to answer. Kris went looking for an out-of-the-way chair where she could recover her naturally sunny disposition and stanch the need to order a real drink.
She had expected to be mobbed or at least respond to a few well-wishers. She found herself alone with Tommy and free to observe. The chasm between the civilian and military parts of the ceremony was as glaring as the differences between what they'd done to get here. The civilians had built, discovered, made things happen, all for the greater glory of humanity… and their own, thank you very much. Kris had damn near got herself killed so a little girl might live.
Kris shook her head. ''General Ho muttered something under his breath as he left the stage. Something about them being so far out in left field they didn't even know what game was being played,'' she said to no one. ''I didn't ask him who he meant, the audience or the generals, but I suspect I know what he'd say.''
Tommy looked around. ''It would fit both.'' Thus leaving Kris with a mental picture of trying to keep a baseball game going when the two teams never left right or left field.
Kris watched as her great-grandparents circulated, trying to manage an endgame for the Society of Humanity, striving to resolve the tension between two factions: one with an almost religious faith that humanity had to be one, the other insisting everyone had a right to do what they wanted. Still, after the split between them was resolved, there would be two groups in each of the new factions, one playing for profit, power, and the glory it brought, the other going for self-sacrifice, power, and glory. Games within games. Kris looked into the faces around her. How much game playing could the fabric of society survive?
Kris came alert as Grampas Ray and Trouble headed her way at the same time Mother did with a young man in tow. Kris hoped Mother would flinch away; Trouble was Mother's least favorite person in the galaxy. No such luck. Kris resigned herself to more dysfunctional family than anyone should have to survive.
''Kris, I want you to meet Henry Smythe-Peterwald the Thirteenth. You two really should get to know each other. You have so much in common.'' Right, Kris thought, and if I marry him, my father-in-law will quit trying to kill me. The hard look on Grampas Trouble's and Ray's faces as they took in the young man left that answer in doubt.
Young Peterwald, however, smiled sunnily and held out a hand. About Kris's age and height, he had the sculptured look that parents with too much money and ego gave children in these days of genetically manipulated offspring. Kris took the offered hand, but before she could say a word, her and Tommy's beeper went off in duet. A quick flick of the wrist treated her to, ''Recall. Your leave is canceled. Emergency circumstances on Olympia require your return to duty immediately.''
How's that for a reprieve! But Kris managed a frown anyway. ''Olympia, where's that?''
Before Nelly could answer, Grampa Trouble chuckled. ''Oh, that one. You've drawn a dilly again, kid. New colony, not yet fifty years old. Had a volcano blow on the other side of the world from the main settlement area.''
''Lucky for them,'' Kris drawled.
''Hardly. Massive blow, tossed enough gunk in the air that the planet skipped a summer. Total crop failure. Now, a current in the ocean offshore has gone missing, and they've been treated to the proverbial forty days and nights of rain.''
''They should wish they were so lucky,'' Grampa Ray cut in. ''They're at twelve months of rain and no end in sight. Looks like you'll have your work cut out for you, young woman. Starvation, flood, and, oh, yes, complete breakdown of civil authority. Bands of heavily armed and desperate types roving the sodden landscape, fighting over what's left.'' Ray grinned at Trouble. ''Yep, looks like the kid drew a nice one.''
''Kind of reminds you of the good old days.'' Trouble laughed.
Mother frowned. Young Peterwald shrugged, and Kris, despite the bad news, felt like a ton had been lifted from her shoulders as she and Tommy excused themselves.
CHAPTER NINE
An old lieutenant at OCS had warned the candidates, ''Being in transit is the closest thing to being a civilian you can get while in uniform. And don't you smile at me. It's hell. And if you're Senior Officer Present, it's worse.'' Kris had only been in transit once; between Wardhaven and High Cambria. A commander had been Senior Officer Present. He'd spent most of the passage in a corner of the bar he alternately designated Naval HQ and the O club. Kris had buried her nose in anything Nelly could dig up on the Kamikaze-class and hadn't surfaced until the liner docked.
Now she wished she'd taken better notes. This trip, Kris was Senior Officer Present.
There weren't a lot of officers to choose from, first two, later four boot ensigns. But Kris graduated a seat ahead of Tommy, mainly because of her rifle range scores. The two ensigns who joined at Pitts Hope were a whole week junior to Kris. Kris found that out from their files because the two of them came aboard, went straight to their adjoining rooms, and never came out, except for meals.
''Doubt the door between their rooms gets closed too often.'' Tommy scowled. The door between Kris's and his rooms stayed closed… except when Kris needed help on official duties, like going over all the vaccination records of her personnel. Kris signed for all the Navy personnel that came aboard, as if they were sacks of potatoes. She also had to verify everyone was up to date on their shots and had all they needed for Olympia. Unfortunately, those requirements were subject to change. Conditions on Olympia were bad and getting worse. Not only was the planet incubating all kinds of new bugs, others that healthy humans kept under control were turning pandemic.
''Typhoid,'' Tommy yelped. ''I thought we wiped that out a couple of hundred years ago.''
''So did I, but there must have been a carrier on Olympia, cause now people are getting sick.''
That particular problem left Kris pacing the dock at High Pitts Hope, waiting for a hastily ordered shipment of vaccine as the good ship SS Lady Hesperis prepared to raise the gangplank and leave. The vials arrived just seconds before the ship's Third Officer's fourth deadline expired, so Kris was not left on the station as the ship pulled away. Kris was none too sure she would have minded that.